Fragile
by geekybones
Summary: Commander London Sigrun Shepard. Infiltrator. Earthborn. Sole survivor of the disaster on Akuze. After a rescue-turned-thresher maw hunt mission, the great hero of the Alliance begins to act strangely. Shepard secludes herself and behaves oddly towards not only the crew but her surroundings. Tali'Zorah soon begins to worry deeply about her lover. Flashbacks are in italics.
1. She Doesn't See Her Beauty

"Erm, Joker?" Tali poked her head into the cockpit of the SR-2, looking towards the ever present pilot who sat before the controls of the frigate.

"Oh hey, Tali!" He swiveled his beloved leather chair around to face her, smiling. Tali remembered how London once told her that upon Tali's return to the Normandy, Joker had remarked that he'd "always liked Tali, so no complaints here." The thought of how London had laughed when she told Tali that story made Tali's heart sink a little more.

"I... Can I talk to you?" Tali's hands automatically performed her trademark nervous hand wringing. She'd had plenty of candid conversations with Joker, but never something serious.

Joker raised an eyebrow. "Uh, sure? What's up?"

Tali took a deep breath. "It's... it's about London."

The smile vanished as Joker's face went into a very uncharacteristic frown. "Come in," he said, waving her in with one hand. Once she entered, he half spun his chair around to hit the door close button. "Sit down." he said, hitting a few switches on the control panel.

Tali took a seat at what would have been the navigator's chair. As Joker spun to face her, he was rubbing his temples with his index finger and thumb.

"It's just...lately...she's been...well, I mean -"

"Highly anti-social? Distracted? Under eating? Easily startled? Disabling all monitoring devices in her cabin?" EDI chimed in from behind Joker.

Joker rolled his eyes. "Yeah, EDI, I think we all have noticed - it's pretty hard to miss." Joker paused as the last part of her sentence hit him. "Wait - disabling the monitoring devices? Can she even do that?"

"Shepard's hacking skills are sufficient enough to disable the monitoring devices in this vessel, but I am programmed to automatically repair them within seconds of such an occurrence. However, due to the removal of my AI shackles, I decided that it would be prudent to respect the Commander's 'request' for privacy and not restore their functioning yet." EDI responded simply.

"Decided to respect Shepard's privacy? Jesus, the mission's over and NOW you decide to let us go off camera..." He put his hat back on his head. "Ok, look, Tali; what I'm about to tell you doesn't go beyond the both of us, got it? The only reason I'm even telling you is because you two got a thing going on. London would space me if she found out I told anyone." Looking over his shoulder, he spoke to EDI. "That includes you, EDI. This is a SECRET. You don't tell anyone else, even if they ask you. It is CLASSIFIE-"

"I understand the concept of 'secrets', Jeff. I will not reveal this conversation to anyone else." EDI replied, her synthesized voice containing just a hint of displeasure at being addressed like a child.

"Right," Joker turned back to Tali, "Ok, so you know about Akuze, of course. You know that London and I first met when we shared a hospital room during her hospitalization after Akuze. But do you know why London was in the hospital?"

"I would assume it was because of her injuries." Tali thought back to London's iconic facial scar, a wound from Akuze.

"That's only half of the reason. Don't get me wrong - the Commander looked like shit when I first met her. Two major bone breaks, multiple minor fractures, acid burns all over her right shoulder, dozens of cuts and bruises...the works." Joker shook his head. "The other reason she was there was because of what Akuze did to her mind."

Tali furrowed her brow. "You mean... Shepard has PTSD?"

"That would be a logical diagnosis considering the severe trauma an event like Akuze entails and her current symptoms." EDI chimed in.

Joker looked at EDI out of the corner of his eye. "Yeah. When I met London, it was all she could do to not panic at every small shake of the floor or attack anyone who surprised her. She didn't sleep for the first three days we shared a room and refused to go outside into the outdoor commons area. She'd hallucinate that people were members of her dead squad and freak out. Most of the time she just stared out the window." Joker closed his eyes and shook his head sadly. "It took a while, but the psych docs were able to help her. She's was able to return to service and become the Shepard we know and love...except..."

"Except...?"

"You guys encountered a thresher maw on your last mission right?"

Tali nodded, a little confused as to where Joker was going. Suddenly it hit her. "Keelah, she gets triggered by thresher maws, doesn't she?"

Joker slowly nodded. "Yeah. I guess nobody noticed because I mean, fighting a maw ain't a small task. Guess they assumed she was just exhausted by it or something so that's why she was so reclusive for a few days every time you guys fight one. But she was really havin' a sort of minor relapse after each encounter." Joker leaned back in his chair. "I can't lie though. I've never seen one be this...bad. What happened? You guys didn't seem to have had a really rough battle, you know, for a thresher maw fight."

Tali rested the cheek of her helmet into one hand, that elbow propped up on one of the chair arms. "Aside from the maw, not much else...we got there, found the settlement destroyed, looked for survivors, and then London...figured out it was a thresher maw..." Tali covered her mouthpiece with the tips of her fingers, sitting up sharply. "Keelah, I should have thought it was odd that she knew so instantly that it was a maw. On Akuze, the first thing the platoon found was a settlement just like the one we found on the mission!"

Tali's mind was filled with the memories of when they had entered the town - the acid burns that covered the machinery and soil, the mutilated corpses and remains of the colonists, the craters in the ground from where the maw had surfaced. It was one thing for London to encounter a maw in the wilds of an uninhabited planet, but it was something completely different to revisit the destruction and death left by one.

Joker grit his teeth. "Oh shit...yeah, that explains it. Christ, to see that again..." He slid down a bit in his chair, gaze distant and brow furrowed.

Tali leapt to her feet. "I have to talk to her."

"Wait - what?" Joker shot up in his chair. "Dude, Tali, no - you don't understand. London has told no one about this. Like, the only way I know is because of us meeting in the hospital then and the only way Chakwas knows is because of the medical records. She doesn't talk about it even to me. Once I tried to bring it up and she pinned me against a wall and borderline threatened me."

Opening the door with a press of the green holographic button, Tali stood in the door way facing the galaxy map. "Joker, London has done so much for me. For all of us. She does it all without asking anything in return. She..." Tali placed a hand over the visor which shielded her face and gripped the other into a fist, "She shouldn't be forced to hide behind a mask."

Joker moved to get out of his chair in order to stop Tali, but stopped and sat back down. "Damn it..."

"Thanks." Tali nodded shortly. Joker watched as she strode purposefully across the CIC until she disappeared into the elevator that led to the Captain's cabin.


	2. She Tries to Get Away

The smell was everywhere.

Rust. Melting plastic and rubber. Burning flesh and hair.

Even covering the vents and shutting off the fans into the cabin didn't stop the smell from getting in. The entire cabin reeked of thresher maw acid.

London sat on the floor in a corner, curled into a ball. Her forehead rested on her propped up knees, hands pulling at her golden hair. She shallowly breathed through her mouth in a futile attempt to block the smell.

Spread before her was an assortment of files and datapads. Some were mission reports. Some were personnel files. The datapads flipped through slideshows of candid vids and pictures, all of the same group of soldiers and a younger London. The papers bore the marks of age and rough treatment, some covered with shaky, frantic notes and highlighting. Directly at London's feet was a casualty list. Several of the names were madly circled repeatedly and noted with the same shaky, crazed style of writing.

The ship hummed beneath her, the normally undetectable vibrations now like wild tremors to the Commander.

"It's just the ship. It's just the engines." London whispered hoarsely. She clamped her eyes shut, but the memories still played out.

_At first it was just the cup on the table. Rattle, rattle, rattle, fall, smash. They looked up. Now it had spread to the windows. Soon the whole house shook. The soil buckled and heaved, carving through the earth like butter and heading straight towards the camp._

_The tremors hadn't even receded when the screaming began._

A clamor of metal on metal deafened London suddenly. The shock caused her to launch forward onto her hands and knees, papers flying everywhere. She looked around the cabin in terror, unsure if the sound had been a simple noise from engineering beneath her or a hallucination. She wasn't even sure they were hallucinations at this point.

The noise happened again and again, louder and more shriek-like each time. London supported herself on her elbows, burying her face into her hands, her nails clawing desperately at her scalp.

_They ran towards the camp, cresting the hill to gaze upon the nightmare that was unfolding._

_The monsters shrieked and screamed. Every time one surfaced it cried out, its giant mouth dripping with acid. Something that massive should roar, deep and throaty. But not these things. Each cry was like a car being ripped in half, a woman being tortured, a thousand nails against chalkboard._

_And everything, monster or soldier, just kept screaming._

A bit of pain and the feeling of her hands slipping to the floor broke the flashback. London panted and shook, slightly bloodied skin wedged under her nails. After a moment - or perhaps several, time had become distorted in her haze - she pushed herself into a sitting position. The shrieking had stopped, the ground no longer trembled, the cabin was untainted by hallucinations. London took a deep, relieved breath, but gagged and choked on it immediately.

The smell. The smell was still there.

She reached up and wiped away the spittle from her mouth, trying her damnedest not to dwell on the image of the creature's immense jaws and corrosive slime. As her hand left her face, however, something caught London's eye. She held up her hand and found it to be smeared with blood. Her eyes went wide, leaping instantly to her feet and dashing to the bathroom mirror.

The figure that gazed back at her shivered in the mirror, blood oozing profusely from the scar across her face. It was if the wound had been reopened, its jagged edges erupting from her skin and warping her left eye lid. The small pain that had broken her revere earlier spiked as her mind and body finally synched up. London grit her teeth, knuckles white as she clung to the counter. The smell of acid grew stronger and stronger until London thought she was going to vomit.

As if on cue, her shoulder began to burn. London's eyes darted to her right shoulder's reflection in the mirror, the warping vision freezing her in terror. Instead of the noticeable but neat surgical scars that were normally present on her shoulder, the flesh appeared to have been chemically burned off. Blistered, weeping, a patchwork of exposed muscle and barely surviving tissue.

_They were almost there. They'd almost made it. The evac shuttle was waiting for them just a few hundred yards away. It was over._

_This time they didn't even have time to notice the tremors as the ground broke beneath them, flinging them through the air. _

_As the others hit the ground, London jerked to a halt in mid-air, her shoulder popping clean out of socket in one swift move. She barely felt it through the burning though. The neon blue tentacle dripped with a clear, viscous fluid, each drop burning clear through London's clothing and dissolving her skin. She screamed and clawed at the appendage, the sound of her flesh blistering and searing deafening in her ears. Her infantile struggle only brought her more agony. The tentacle began to constrict, tighter and tighter, until her entire shoulder bone and joint structure crumbled beneath the immense pressure. The agony mercifully brought on pain-numbing shock. London didn't even feel the crash into the rock outcropping when the monster tossed her aside._

_She didn't even realize she'd come within centimeters of losing her left eye until the medic was pulling shards of rock from the gash in her face and attempting to set her snapped cheekbone._

London stumbled backwards, hitting the wall and sliding down it. She shook violently, eyes wide and darting around. The room around her warped in and out of reality - the cacophony of gunfire, human and bestial screaming, the tremor of the ground being torn apart, the mutilated corpses of civilian and soldier alike, hung just out of line sight.

And the smell of thresher maw acid was the strongest of all.

Senses completely overwhelmed, London curled into a ball once more, fingers digging viciously back into her scalp. The knees of her pants quickly dampened with the blood from her facial laceration. London shook her head rapidly. "No. No. No. No. No -"

Knock knock.

And just like that, reality snapped back. The gentle hum of the engines returned, soothing and subtle. The air in the cabin, though stagnant and humid, was free of scent. The only movements in the cabin were the fish that swam gracefully in their tank. London wiped a hand quickly across her face, finding only sweat and tears. Her shoulder, though aching a bit more than usual, was healed. Her scars were neat and closed. London let her hand fall to the ground, sliding down the wall a bit more and staring at the opposite wall.

She barely registered the cabin door sliding open, but when the guest spoke, London instantly broke from her daze.

"London? Is everything okay in here?"

The voice wiped all thought from London's mind except one - 'Tali'.


	3. I Won't Let You Fall Apart

"London?" Tali called out again, entering further into the room.

"I - uh, hold - hold on a second, Tali." London responded from the bathroom, scrambling to her feet. She snatched up a towel, wiping the sweat from her face, and tried to straighten up her disheveled appearance as best she could as quickly as she could. She couldn't raise anymore suspicion, especially not from Tali.

London collected herself as much as she could and stepped out of the bathroom, meeting Tali face to face at the corner where the entrance way led off to the side area. They both recoiled a bit at the sudden appearance of one another, London awkwardly driving her gaze away and picking at her nails reflexively.

Tali, of course, did not miss this. Nor did she miss London's peculiarly messy hair, tear stained eyes, the skin shoved beneath her nails, the fresh red five point scrapes and indentions that covered her upper arms, or the tiniest drops of dried blood that had begun to show against London's light blonde hair. The situation was worse than Tali had ever thought.

"London, are you... okay? You've been acting strangely ever since..."

"Yeah. I'm fine. Just tired. It's nothing." London walked over to the bed stiffly. "Was just heading off to bed actually. Sorry to worry you."

Tali took a step forward, one hand on the wall beside her, and began to speak in that same fast paced, overly worded way that she had the night before the Omega 4 Relay. "Look, London, you don't have to hide anything for me. I'm always here to talk to you and listen to you, no matter what. And with the way you've been acting lately, I'm just really worried about you and how you feel after that last mission being so like... like... I, well it's not healthy to let trauma build up, especially from an event as horrifying as Akuze-"

London spun around sharply. "I'm not hiding anything! I dealt with Akuze years ago. I'm fine!" She snapped back defensively.

"So you never have flashbacks or think about your platoon or any of it?" Tali crossed her arms, popping one hip out to the side.

"No!"

"What are those?"

London froze as Tali nodded her head towards the papers and datapads that covered the floor of the corner which she'd been cowering in earlier. Even from the bathroom doorway the headlines and old newsvids betrayed their Akuze centric data. There was no hiding it now. She could either force Tali into silence as she had Joker or she could give into Tali's demand to talk.

London dropped to the foot of the bed, gaze locked shamefully to the ground as Tali strode across the room to the documents. London heard the rustling of paper as Tali picked up and read through a few pieces.

"These...how old are these, even?"

"Most are originals I got a hold of, or copies of originals I made after I got out of the hospital. Some are more recent- from when I got Spectre privilege. The newsvids are a collection from across the years." London's reply was deadpan and simple. She listened intently to each step Tali took as she approached and then sat down next to her.

"And...these?" Tali's voice was soft and somewhat hesitant now. London looked out of the corner of her eye and saw that Tali was offering her one of the datapads. Reluctantly, London took it from the quarian's grasp and lifted her gaze to look at the image upon it.

Five humans stood at attention in their low rank dress blues, saluting the camera and all cracking enormous smiles. One of them was a much younger London, her face free of scars and her eyes bright. London froze, a lump forming in her throat. She didn't respond.

"Squad mates?" Tali eventually guessed aloud after London had been silent for a while.

"Friends. They died on Akuze." London dropped the datapad into Tali's lap, looking away immediately.

Tali knew she had to keep pushing. She had to get London to talk about it. "Tell me about them." She picked up one of London's hands and grasped it around the datapad.

Taking a deep breath, London turned back to the screen. She flicked the screen to change the picture, a close up of a freckled, red headed young woman appearing.

"Crusan. She was a nerdy, small town kid looking for something more. Brilliant programmer- learned half of what I know from her. She would have loved EDI."

She lifted her hand to switch to next photo, but hesitated. Tali gently placed her hand over London's and guided it to the datapad, the picture switching to a suave, handsome brown haired young man.

"Reis. He was such a player - always came back from shore leave with someone new on his arm. Best part was that he wasn't rich, he wasn't that talented at anything, military-wise, he wasn't even that smart. But goddamn if he wasn't the best goddamn talker you ever met. He was so good at manipulating people to his side that I swear he could have indoctrinated a Reaper." A small smile formed on London's face ever so briefly as she remembered the young man. Another flick, another face; a refined, put together Indian girl with a bearing that reminded Tali of Miranda - driven, disciplined, and borderline ruthless.

"Patel. God, she was so proud of her biotics. One of the first biotic humans to graduate the experimental Alliance biotic military program. Even still, she wasn't looking for combat - Patel always aimed for political warfare. We used to poke fun at her bureaucratic aspirations, but now I see that she just wanted to make the galaxy a better place. She wanted a better life for biotic kids everywhere and she was smart enough to see that part of accomplishing that was playing politician."

The next picture to appear featured a tall, athletic African youth, his face calm and good natured. A sort of mischief sparkled in his dark eyes. Tali heard London inhale sharply.

"Darzi. I was the closest to him. We got into a fight the first day we met actually. I can't even remember now what it was about, but after a sergeant broke it up, Darzi came up to me and told me to meet him in starboard cargo hold after lights out. I had assumed he wanted to finish our match, so I showed up ready to brawl, but instead found out that Darzi and the others ran a freakin' amateur bareknuckle boxing ring. Cadet versus cadet, almost no rules, betting encouraged, totally secret from the COs." London turned her face toward Tali. "Crusan was the bookie, Patel kept everything organized and secure, Reis was the commentator, and Darzi was the ref. It was a brilliant little operation that kept them financially well off and the cadets entertained."

"That's genius! A little...barbaric, but genius. Did you...participate?" Tali kept the conversation flowing.

A short chuckle escaped London's throat. "Yeah, actually fought several times. I'd had plenty of practice during my time in the Reds, so I won my fair share of matches. I remember one night as we all closed up shop I was like 'Darzi, how come you never fight?' I knew from our brawl that he was absolutely amazing in the ring - took blows like they were nothing and could dish them out faster than you could think. He just flashed me that big grin of his, shrugged, and went 'Gets boring when you win all the time, you know?' and went back to wiping the blood off the floor."

The smile that had been growing on London's face receded. "Never got to find out where he learned to fight like that." She swallowed hard and tossed the datapad into Tali's lap. "He died on Akuze, just like the rest of them."

Tali paused, watching London intently. Her lover's gaze had gone cold and distant once again. 'Come on, Tali. Don't let her put the wall back up.' Tali urged herself mentally, her shaking knees betraying her nervousness and fright.

"How did you all get the Akuze assignment? Were you in the same squad?"

London shook her head. "All volunteered together. It was Patel's idea - said it was 'the perfect opportunity to establish good will between biotics and conservative civilians'. She always looked at things as opportunities. Played it to Crusan's curiosity, Reis' ego, and well, Darzi and I were just along for anything that got us off the base." She was quiet for a minute before muttering, "Just a bunch of stupid kids, couldn't have known what we were getting into."

Tali placed a hand on London's shoulder. "You're right, London. You couldn't have known. The Alliance had no idea what had happened to the colony and they'd never even encountered thresher maws before. You can't blame yourself-" However, London cut her off by standing up sharply and walking over to the desk, back remaining turned to Tali.

"You think I blame myself for what happened there? You think this is all a bunch of survivor's guilt? Tali, I blame myself for a lot of things, but Akuze has never been one of them. I didn't kill those civilians, those soldiers, or my friends with my inexperience or any of that bullshit- those fucking creatures did that. Don't fucking patronize me!"

Tali was shocked by London's uncharacteristic lashing out, but the quarian's own temper flared up just as fast. "You expect me to believe that? Really? So you've been hiding up here for fun, is that it?"

London's body tensed as she attempted to hold her emotions back, her grasp tightening around the partially dismantled combat drone which sat upon the desk. "No, it's not that. I just-"

"You what?" Tali snapped back, now standing, "If that's not it, then why would you do this to yourself, to me? Answer me, bosh'tet!"

"Because the great hero Commander Shepard can't be paralyzed with fear by some mindless fucking animals!" London raged back, throwing the drone across the room. It smashed into the wall and London flipped to face a speechless Tali. "That's why! That's why I hide it! How would it look if the first human spectre, the defeater of Saren, the slayer of the Collectors, was put in her place not by these galaxy terrorizing villains but some memories of an animal attack? They'd never take me seriously again- 'Oh, if she can't even face a thresher maw without having a mental breakdown, then there's no way she can take down the Reapers!'" London slammed a fist into the desk, fingers and palm going white from the pressure. "So there, Tali. That's why. That's why I hide it. Happy?"

The two were silent for what felt like an eternity. There was only the sound of London reflexively massaging her right shoulder, the rasping of cloth on skin seeming to echo throughout the cabin.

"I...London, I-I'm sorry-" Tali stuttered, holding back tears.

"No, don't. I'll... I'll be fine. Just give me a few more days alone to get through it and then-" But London was cut off as Tali rushed forward and embraced her tightly. The quarian buried her visor into London's chest, lithe body heaving with sobs.

"No! I won't leave you alone! Not anymore!" Tali looked into London's eyes and placed her hands on London's cheeks. "London, don't... Don't just assume that something like this would make me lose faith in you!"

"But-"

"Screw everyone else- they never believed you could do any of the things you did until you did them. But me... I always believed in you and nothing- _nothing_- could change that. Especially not when it's about anything related to Akuze." Tali's hands dropped to London's shoulders, "I just...I just want to help you, London. That's all I've ever wanted."

Now London was the one who was speechless. As Tali sobbed, London took a deep breath and pulled her close. Tali's arms slipped under the taller woman's arms and wrapped around her back. They hugged, silent except for Tali's crying, a few tears escaping London's eyes and dropping onto Tali's hood.

London had grown up with no true family past her youngest of years. She had never been in a serious, loving relationship. In every relationship London had been in, even her closest of friendships, she had never had an understanding of true unconditional love. London always felt that if she showed weakness, then the other person would think less of her.

But in all the commotion, London had somehow forgotten that Tali was different. Tali didn't solely admire her or find London useful or anything of that nature- Tali loved her. The night that Tali had removed her mask and shown London her face was a literal show of her trust and devotion to London, that she wanted to share every aspect of herself, strengths and weaknesses alike. By hiding this mental battle from Tali, London hadn't maintained any sort of aura of indomitability or confidence. She'd just disrespected the most intimate, loving gesture of total acceptance that Tali could give another person. If Tali meant anything real to London, she had to do the same and let Tali in completely.

London pulled away a bit, Tali's tears beginning to slow, and lifted Tali's chin so that her own blue eyes could look directly into the soft silvery glow of Tali's.

"Tali, I love you." London took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a brief moment as she gathered herself and then looking directly back at Tali, "Please, help me."

Tali gave a quiet gasp. Through the semi-opaque visor, London could see Tali's eyes go wide and then her lips form a tender, overjoyed smile. "You have no idea how long I've waited to hear you say that." Tali whispered, tears beginning to flow once more. She affectionately nuzzled close to London.

London kissed the crown of Tali's hooded head once, one hand on the small of her lover's back and the other stroking the hood as if it was hair.

"You have no idea how long I've waited for someone to say that, too


End file.
